


En Route

by Chromi



Category: Grandia
Genre: Childhood Friends, Drabble, Friendship, Gen, Introspection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-01
Updated: 2020-08-01
Packaged: 2021-03-06 07:27:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,139
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25639486
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chromi/pseuds/Chromi
Summary: She’s his rock, Sue is – she’s his shadow, his reasoning, the screeching brakes against his wild impulses. She knows, and she knows she knows, how to go about being an adult far better than he does.Or:On the steam ship to Elencia, Justin is too excited to sleep.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 8





	En Route

He supposes he shouldn’t wake her. They’re exhausted; it’s been a long day – a long few days, in actuality – and Sue, though she may vehemently protest it, is still a child. Her sleep is far more precious than his is. He knows this. He knows it, and yet watching her stirs a restlessness that refuses to relent deep in his heart because he wants her _awake_ and every bit as energised as he.

Puffy rises on her chest with every inhale, the creature peacefully snoozing right along with its master.

Justin watches it, each second slipping by one that sends little cascades of jitters all the way down to his fingertips.

Just a prod would be okay, right? Just a little nudge. An accident – something that he can blame on shifting in his sleep, if he can get back into a convincing enough position to feign sleep in before Sue starts raging. Though she handles poor sleep remarkably well for someone her age, she is no less likely to flail in confusion on the first lapping of consciousness on a mind otherwise perfectly content with staying inert.

He’s almost at the point of simply getting up and going to find the night watch on their steamer, he’s that excited. _How_ is he supposed to sleep when they’re en route for Elencia!? It’s his dream come true – his lifelong ambition unveiling itself before him, step by step, inch by inch… and Justin can’t bear the thought of missing any of it, even the more mundane parts. Such as, say, trying to sleep on the floor of the steamer’s crews’ quarters.

A sigh heaves its way past his lips; a sigh that is shaky and quivering with boiling agitation. Maybe a run on deck will sort him out, or perhaps scaling up to the crow’s nest and startling the watchman wrapped up in a blanket, telescope at the ready.

Finally, Justin settles on none of the above, and hisses Sue’s name in the almost pitch-black darkness.

“Sue,” he whispers again when she stirs with a groggy groan, and he’s not even slightly surprised to hear his voice tremble with suppressed glee, “hey, Sue, you awake? Can’t sleep?”

He feels her irritation in the air like an electric current, crackling menacingly. She sits up, dislodging Puffy, who immediately flutters up to its favored spot on the crown of Sue’s head.

“Did you wake me?” Comes Sue’s flat annoyance through the dark, her outline just discernible in the dim gloom. It’s less of a question and more of a ‘I already know you did and I’m giving you the chance to own up, Justin’.

“Of course not!” And ah, he’s beaming, he’s giving himself away with how on the brink of screaming in excitement he is. And Sue, though near invisible to him, is definitely frowning with all her might. “But now that you’re awake, Sue—”

“Now that you’ve _very_ rudely woken a slumbering lady, you mean,” she grumbles, and Justin swears he sees her fold her arms in her no-nonsense manner.

He side-steps her truthful accusation.

“Can you believe we’re going to _Elencia?”_ Justin sighs. His knees shake as he sits up, and though he tries to master himself, he graciously accepts he is fighting a losing battle. “Sue, we’re on a _ship_ on our way to _Elencia_. This is really happening.” He can’t help but bury his face in his palms, convinced the sparkling, bubbling emotions zipping through him are going to explode from his chest and then Sue will be _really_ mad— “We’re _real_ adventurers now, Sue!”

“And we’ll still be real adventurers in the morning,” Sue yawns widely, and she is surely covering her mouth in an attempt to stifle what she’s likely ashamed of succumbing to. “They’re making us scrub the decks when we get up – we’re not gonna have the energy to even lift the mop if we don’t go back to sleep.”

She’s right, and Justin knows she’s right, but still he clicks his tongue in irritation.

“I just can’t wrap my head around it all,” he admits a little breathlessly, flopping back down to the floor; he can’t even find it in himself to care that they don’t have beds, that the crew are making them sleep on a rug and nothing else – heck, he’d sleep dangling by his ankles off the stern if they decided that was where he was best placed, so long as he remained on the ship. “It’s just, Sue— _Sue_ oh my goodness, I feel like I’m going to vibrate right out of my _skin_ , I’m so ready to discover Elencia—”

A pat to his bent knee jerks Justin away from rolling into babbling nonsense. She’s always been good at heading him off, Sue has.

“We’re gonna be livin’ the dream,” Sue says, and Justin grins up into the still air.

“Livin’ it up adventurer style,” he agrees.

“Down here in the belly of a stinky old ship, surrounded by stinky old sailors.”

“Hey, they’re part of the dream too,” Justin scolds, though he can’t help the bubble of laughter that pops under his words, “every single person we meet is a piece of the puzzle we’re putting together, Sue. They’re all important.”

“Even the men who tried to throw me overboard for being a stowaway?” Sue sniffs, and Justin can see her point, though doesn’t necessarily agree with it.

“Even them,” he says firmly. “But hey, enough about the sailors.” He rolls onto his stomach, beaming at Sue’s outline. “I can’t _wait_ to see Liete in person!”

“Me neither,” Sue says thickly through another yawn – this time, Puffy audibly yawns too, “but right now, I’m more excited about seeing a big stack of pancakes in my dreams…”

“G’night, Sue,” Justin whispers, reaching for her in the dark. His fingers brush hers, and suddenly she is gripping his thumb like an infant latching to its mother, and her vulnerability is exposed as starkly as if it had just been screamed in his ear.

She’s asleep again before she can nag him to drop off himself. She’s asleep, and she’s breathing heavily, steadily, a familiar rhythm that Justin is selfishly loathe to admit he finds as comforting as the heartbeat of a mother to a new-born. She’s his rock, Sue is – she’s his shadow, his reasoning, the screeching brakes against his wild impulses. She knows, and she _knows_ she knows, how to go about being an adult far better than he does. Though she is younger than him, Justin sees her strength and vivacious spirit. It was cruel to try to leave her behind; he knew then, he knows now, he will know always. He will protect her no matter the cost; she will defend him when all other hope is lost.

That’s just the way they are fated to be.


End file.
